


Safekeeping

by tei



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M, Non-Sexual Submission, Wartenberg Wheel, Waxplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 17:13:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16748197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tei/pseuds/tei
Summary: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson keep each other safe.For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead but sleeping...-The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter(In which Watson is somewhat prescient regarding potential uses for new medical implements.)





	Safekeeping

It has become well-known to readers of my more public accounts of my life with Sherlock Holmes that, as a safeguard against some of my more pernicious vices, and on my request, Holmes took to keeping my pocket-book locked safely in his drawer. He allowed me access to my own funds only to a degree that could not be abused, and as the years went by and the urge to seek excitement in gambling-halls decreased in proportion to the excitement and satisfaction of our life together, the originally desperate measure of Holmes safekeeping my wages grew into a comfortable habit between intimate friends. 

So much is known about his stewardship of me. But it was also not without precedent between us when, one evening at the end of a week in which Holmes had not had a single case which managed to capture his attention for longer than half an hour, I looked up from my my perusal of some of the latest medical journals to find my friend striding across the sitting room with several lengths of rope in his hand. He dropped the ropes into my lap and sank to his knees in front of my chair, his hands clasped behind his back. 

“And what’s this?” I asked lightly. 

“My mind rebels,” he answered readily. “That much would be easily fixed with a syringe, but you object to my subjecting my body to the ravages of cocaine. I am suggesting, therefore, that you... secure it.”

I lay my reading on the side-table and accepted the rope that he offered me, regarding him as coolly as I could manage. His head stayed bowed, a rare show of patience and subservience which I knew would not last long without further encouragement from me. 

“Bed, nude, on your back, arms and legs splayed,” I ordered him, adding into my voice the trace of unquestionable authority which I had first learned on the battlefield, when it had been necessary to order onto the operating table men who knew that we had no more ether to give them, and thus hesitated despite the necessity of treatment. Then, I had hated the way I forced my voice steely and my eyes unfeeling, blocking out any sentiment for the poor fellows beyond the knowledge of what I must do to them. 

With Holmes, however, I sometimes have the occasion to put this ability to much better use. 

He went, a strange, meek creature compared to the masterful Holmes who usually inhabited our rooms. He undressed and lay himself out on our bed, and I began the work of securing each of his limbs to one of the bed-posts. I was accustomed to this task, most usually from when Holmes wishes that I gamahuche him, and I wish to avoid having a cock thrust down my throat. My friend is a man who in many situations could, if he wished, surely restrain himself, but frequently finds restraint to be tedious and thus unnecessary. 

Holmes’ desire for cocaine, however, could not be diverted by so uncomplicated a means as a sexual encounter. His member was flaccid against his thigh as I pulled the ropes tight around his wrists and ankles, for he was tacitly asking me, I knew, for another type of sensation entirely. 

It has been a source of gratified confusion to me, throughout my association with Sherlock Holmes, that he seems to regard me as a source of unending fascination in our daily lives. So far as I can tell, I am a sturdy, regular fellow; useful in a fight, and as a friend and doctor, but nothing exotic enough in my habits that I should so preoccupy the greatest mind in London. 

However, I do not believe it to be hubris to state that when it comes to pleasures— and near-pleasures, and small tortures— of the flesh, I pride myself in my ability to continually surprise and delight my friend.

I was of course familiar with Holmes’ propensity to turn to cocaine when he found no other way to occupy his mind. So too had I become accustomed to the way in which he asked me to-- granted me the privilege of-- turning his mind away from its own powerful roar. In these moments, the only option is to divert the attention to the body. And, as I am a medical man, I am constantly alert for the discovery of novel sensations which I may present to my friend whenever he requires them. 

Thus my first order of business, once Holmes was tied up, was to cover his eyes with a large dark handkerchief; I had recently purchased a new tool for use at just this moment, and I wished it to be a surprise until the moment he felt it on his skin. 

“I will return in a moment,” I said to him, and went back into the sitting-room to open the locked desk-drawer where I keep my unfinished manuscripts. Living with Sherlock Holmes does not afford a large degree of privacy, but I know that that drawer is safe from him; he reads only the manuscripts that I give him, and then only with much schoolgirlish blushing at my heroic portrayal of him. 

What I drew from the drawer was a wand with a rotating wheel on the end. The thin roller was adorned with a halo of small spikes; not enough to pierce skin, but sharp enough to make themselves known even with minimal pressure. The device is a new proposal by a young American doctor, Wartenberg, who uses it to discern the sensitivity of the nerves in patients. The moment I had read of the thing in a medical journal, however, my mind was sent off on another track entirely. I was immediately taken with the image of rolling it over Holmes’ pale skin, the man blindfolded and unable to discern the source of the strange sensation. 

Holmes was squirming, straining a little against his bonds, when I re-entered the bedroom. I laid a hand on his chest to calm him, murmuring, “None of that, now,” and he relaxed a little down into the bedding, pliant and waiting for whatever I wished give him. 

Already I could see the edges of his sharpness starting to bleed away, his mind calming as he was forced to cede control to me. I sat beside him, wondering how best to go about it. The pale expanse of his flesh offered seemingly unlimited options, but I first placed the wheel in my lap and turned my attentions to his left arm. 

For many years, I despised the sight of Holmes’ left arm, scarred as it is with the evidence of years of self-abuse through drugs. Lately, though, I had come to rather enjoy watching the skin grow stronger and thicker as the intervals between punctures grew longer and finally tapered off. So I lifted Holmes’ thin arm as much as his bonds would allow off the mattress, and trailed a line of kisses from wrist to shoulder before picking up the wheel. 

I would, I decided, start with less sensitive skin and build up to prickling the thing over his belly, and neck, and the bottoms of his feet. The first contact of the pins I pressed to Holmes’ bicep, rolling it gently down his upper arm, and he drew in a heavy breath and whipped his head to the side, as if he expected to be able to see the implement through the thick fabric over his eyes, which I knew he could not. 

“Still,” I ordered him, nudging his head back to its proper position staring unseeingly at the ceiling. His lips parted, and I could almost feel his remarkable powers of observation giving up every other source of stimulation, and focusing entirely on his own body. I chose that moment to trail the wheel over his thigh, harder, and watched with great satisfaction as he first bucked on instinct, then forced himself down almost as soon as the movement was triggered. 

“Good,” I said to him, smoothing my palm over the tiny red marks that flared up on his skin. “Good, stay still, my boy, still and calm…” he managed to barely move at all when I began a longer stroke, starting on the other thigh and traveling up to just above his navel, then down and up in a V pattern over his entire lower belly.

The sight of my friend spread out on our bed, expending every ounce of energy in his lithe body to remain still and pliant for me, was admittedly leaving me rather breathless myself, but I pushed aside my own desire and focused on the task at hand. 

I was able to work over Holmes’ entire torso, and was beginning to contemplate traveling down towards his feet, when I could see from the set of his jaw and the minute movements in his limbs that he was growing used to the sharp prickle of the wheel, and would soon tire of it. None of this, of course, had yet occurred to him in his addled state-- but I knew him well, both the masterful everyday Holmes and the soft otherworldly creature that I can sometimes transform him into, and I could see it plain as day. 

I set the wheel to the side, and gazed down at his body. I had grown bolder as Holmes did not protest the sensation of the wheel, and had been pushing the device into the skin with enough force to just barely stay shy of breaking the skin. He was peppered with angry red dots, his pale flesh doubtless sensitive to the lightest touch. 

I had one more distraction planned, and this one was familiar to Holmes. However, it was a measure of how very far out of his mind and into his body I had succeeded in drawing him that he did not seem aware of my opening and closing a box in the dresser, and he failed to deduce my intentions even when the recognizable snick of a match being struck rang out in the warm air of the bedroom. 

The candles which I keep in the bedroom dresser are soft and burn quickly, creating pools of wax which drip and make them unsuitable for any use save this one. I positioned myself over Holmes, who was waiting docilely for me, and tipped the candle slightly such that the wax splashed over his reddened chest. He gasped at the sudden sharp heat and his body seemed undecided on whether it wanted to shrink away or draw closer to the pain. I waited, allowing him as always the chance to refuse, but he simply calmed his breathing once more and lay prepared for the next burst of heat. 

Painting Holmes’ skin with hot wax is an exquisite pleasure for me, and an equally exquisite pain for him. After a short period of holding the candle high in the air, allowing the wax to cool on its way down, I sat down on the bed and held the candle lower, leaving trails of liquid-to-solid on him that will leave angry red marks for him to examine tomorrow. 

He enjoys examining the marks I give him; I have seen him at it. I wouldn’t dare needle him about it, not once his is quite back to his usual self-- but it is enough for me to know that when he runs a thin fingertip over that particular spot on his chest, he is remembering fondly what he allowed me to do to him. 

When there was almost no more skin on his chest and stomach left to paint, and the candle was burning dangerously close to my fingers, I extinguished it and surveyed my handiwork. Holmes was merely groaning softly, a constant sound that has been going ever since I sat on the bed with the candle. He was in some pain, no doubt, but not in distress-- a marked improvement from his previous state. 

I untied the ropes, setting him free limb by limb and allowing myself the pleasure of examining each of his wrists and ankles. There were welts on them from the pressure and the moments when he unwittingly tugged at his bonds. The wax had cooled entirely, and once he was free to move around, he still chose to remain still to allow me to pick it off him and dispose of it. Finally, I moved to remove the handkerchief from his eyes, but he stopped me with a hand. 

“If you would, John,” he mumbled, sounding quite languid. 

He wanted it on, then; a small shield that could give him, separating him from the screeching gale of the world for a little bit longer. I extinguished the lamp and lay down behind him, entrapping his weakened limbs in my own as a benevolent prison. 

In the morning he would wake, the specter of the morocco syringe-case passed for the time being, and inspect with his curious blend of scientific and carnal interest the instruments that he had experienced the previous evening. I would soon be called upon to ruminate on further methods of surprising and delighting a blindfolded, struggling Sherlock Holmes, a task which I approach with the utmost joy. For the moment, however, we simply rested, secure in the knowledge of the other’s safekeeping.


End file.
